


Gaijin

by GohanRoxas



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Feudal Japan, F/M, Google Translated Japanese, Minor Crossover Elements, Romance, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Swearing, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-31 01:48:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3959845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GohanRoxas/pseuds/GohanRoxas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cloud Strife is a ronin - a clanless, roaming samurai exiled for some reason so odd even he can't tell you what it was. Wandering the land for profit and to avoid all the men seeking his head - and the bounty put upon it - has become second nature to him.</p>
<p>So when he is hired to protect the headstrong daughter of Wutai's daimyo, it's an entirely new experience. Couple that with the return of an old rival, a new threat on the horizon and some rather confusing feelings for another of the daimyo's bodyguards, and Cloud's life is about to become very interesting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gaijin

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to me one day after I read two different Legend of Korra stories which depicted Korra as a ronin while Asami was the one she was assigned to protect (the names of the stories currently escapes me, but I intend to give them full credit once I remember).
> 
> A couple of notes. First, the title of the story: "Gaijin" is derogatory Japanese slang for "foreigner". More often than not it's used in media by members of the Yakuza or to describe Wolverine. Secondly, the Japanese: This originally had a lot more of it in there, but I thinned it out for the sake of time. And most of it has come from Google Translate, while other bits come from my own knowledge of the language. On top of that, I'll have English translations in end notes of every chapter there is Japanese.

The man in the grey peasant coat and sedge shade hat watched the streets unobtrusively from his vantage point. In one hand he lazily held a wooden walking stick, while what appeared to be a case for a musical instrument lay beside his chair.

As he looked around, he took in the bustling streets of Wutai. People went about their daily business as if it would never be interrupted, paying little attention to the men in leather armour who held long spears in one hand; in fact, no-one seemed to notice them except for some of the older ladies who acknowledged “Hana-chan” and asked them to pay their respects to “my dear friend Kaho-chan”.

Lazily, the man saw a group of three women walking down the paved street. In the centre was an unassuming young girl with short black hair and a green band tied onto her forehead. She wore brown, simple clothing, though her legs and arms were bare, revealing iron braces on them.

To the girl’s left was a rather pretty woman in a pink kimono that seemed neither formal nor informal. A ribbon of the same hue was tied into her long brown hair, and she wore the usual tabi and geta on her feet.

To the right was a woman who was obviously stripped down for action. Her simple brown smock had been cut to only cover her rather ample chest, revealing lean yet muscular arms and a toned stomach. Similarly, her trousers were cut off much like the young girl’s, and she too wore braces on her arms and lower legs. Curiously, he noticed that the metal on her hands and feet looked harder than the rest. Her long raven-black hair had been tied into a ponytail.

“Lady Yuffie,” the maiden to the left smiled, her green eyes shining, “it appears the town is thriving after all. Lord Godo is sure to be pleased.”

The girl snorted, a very unladylike sound. “ _Otōsan to jigoku e!_ * Since when has he really cared about the people?”

The other woman chuckled. “Yuffie, that’s not very nice.”

“Maybe not, but it’s true, isn’t it? I’m not even sure why he hired Lord Barret to protect me. You guys work better as companions than guardians.”

_Guardians?_ the man thought. _Looks like I was misled…again._

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” the buxom woman asked loudly, sounding more than a little insulted.

“Don’t worry, Tifa,” Yuffie chuckled, “I mean that your talents are wasted here. No-one’s going to attack me or Wutai anytime soon.”

Of course, it was at that point that a rather dishevelled looking gate guard came running, panting heavily. “ _Ojōsama_!** Bandits at the gates!”

Yuffie growled to herself. “Hachiman must hate me.”

The wooden gates crashed open and a hoarde of dirty looking men poured onto the streets, all wielding rusty blades – swords, spears, axes and all the rest.

The man in the sedge shade took this opportunity to grab his walking stick and instrument case and retreat into the house. Not that he was intent on hiding, mind you. His plan was to get a better view.

And a better shot.

* * *

The woman known as Tifa was busily marshalling the panicking residents of Wutai, getting the women and children off the streets and into buildings, as well as organising most of the troops. It was at this point that she turned to her ally, the woman in the pink kimono. “Aerith! Go back to the castle! Barret and the daimyo will protect you!”

“I can fight too!”

“Not in a kimono, you can’t! Don’t worry, you’ll get your share of the action another day!”

Reluctantly, Aerith nodded and began to move back to the castle.

“Probably not a bad idea sending her home,” Yuffie complimented, holding onto a wooden spear with one hand.

“Well, I would say the same to you, my Lady, but you’d just say something like ‘Shut up, Boobs’ and sneak out into the battle anyway, wouldn’t you?”

The girl laughed. “You know me so well.”

By this time they were surrounded by bandits. One of them, a tall, bald man with a broken nose and a lazy eye was chuckling derisively. “Lookie here, boys. A couple of ladies wanna fight. Well, they might not put up much of a fight now, but I think when we grab ‘em by the hair and drag ‘em where we want ‘em they will.” Derisive laughter followed his comment.

Yuffie’s eyes burned with rage. “Go fuck yourself!” she growled. “If you even so much as think of trying it I’ll cut your dick off!

The man glared at her, though his eye twitched in what could have passed for fear. “Kill ‘em! I’ll just fuck their corpses!”

The bandits laughed and roared as they charged. Both women readied for the attack.

Yuffie began to spin her spear around like it was a staff, equal parts cutting and bruising the thugs around her. Meantime, Tifa had made a beeline for the crude bandit who’d made all those threats.

“Hmph,” he grunted, his lips curling in a sneer, his one good eye scanning her lewdly. “Not bad. Maybe I’ll let you live…so I can listen to you scream…”

Tifa glowered at him and didn’t respond.

He laughed. “Don’t be so shy. I like hearing them beg me to stop.”

The woman lunged forwards and punched him in the face. The bandit shouted and clutched his jaw with one hand. Blood was slowly leaking between his fingers. “The hell?!” he demanded.

She ignored him again and just moved in and promptly kicked him between the legs.

The man’s eyes bulged and he doubled over in pain, screaming silently.

Suddenly he jolted slightly and the blood that came from the cut on his cheek was joined by a steady flow from his mouth. He gurgled and sighed as he toppled sideways before rolling onto his front.

Confused, Tifa knelt beside the dead body and saw a rather intricately made arrow poking out of the bandit’s back. She grabbed the arrow and yanked it out, staring at the steel head. It was jagged on one side, like a saw blade, and she saw small chunks of the bandit’s flesh stuck in the bends.

Around her, Yuffie, the guards and able-bodied peasants were driving off the bandits, while some of the attackers were fleeing for their lives.

Not that they got very far.

Most of the fleeing men were felled by arrows very similar to the one that had killed the hulking bandit Tifa had fought.

Yuffie had dropped her spear and now stood behind Tifa, who was still staring at the strange arrow. “Not one of ours,” the girl murmured, peering at it, “and none of you guys use a bow.”

“Then who in the name of Bishamonten did this?”

* * *

The man in the sedge shade was long gone at this point. He sat at the bar of an inn called Penitent Angel, downing a cup of sake in one go.

The innkeeper, a bulky man in his forties with black hair that fell down to his shoulders and a downy fuzz on his chin, arched one eyebrow. “That might not have been wise.”

The man’s hat lay discarded on the bar, so when he looked back at the innkeeper, his spiky blonde hair, deep blue eyes and jagged scar on his left cheek were obvious. “I don’t really care about wise right now, Angeal.”

“What’s got you so riled up?”

“That job you mentioned. The one in Wutai.”

“You mean to protect the daimyo’s daughter, Kisaragi-sama, from the shadows?”

“You never mentioned actual bodyguards already being there.”

“Well, that’d be because I didn’t know.” Angeal smiled. “Look, Cloud. Do you honestly believe I’d tell you about it if I knew Lord Godo had already summoned a group of guards?”

Cloud smiled slightly. “Guess not.”

At that point, the door slammed open and four men walked in, three of them in dirty rags, the fourth wearing thin-looking leather armour. The armour-clad man was wiry, with eyes that seemed to bulge out of their sockets. He held a sword in his hand, the scabbard still on his waist. The group sauntered into the inn, pushing tables and stools roughly out of their way.

“Hey!” Angeal admonished them. “It takes days to put those back together.”

The men ignored him and surrounded Cloud. _Great_ , he thought, _that’s exactly what I need right now_.

The man in armour put one hand on Cloud’s shoulder and leaned in. “ _Gaijin_ ,” he snarled. “You know, Shinra still has rather a high bounty on you.”

Cloud put down the cup he had begun to raise and turned to look at the man. “ _Yūjin ni kuru_ ***…” he drawled, standing up lazily, not even bothering to pick up his sword. “Are a few measly coins worth your life?”

The man flinched for a moment before regaining his composure. “Kill him! We’ll take his head to Shinra!”

Cloud rolled his eyes and blocked the incoming strike from one of the hulking bodyguards with both arms, using the man’s momentum against him and flipping him over, smashing a table. The blonde man shot an apologetic look at Angeal before he grabbed a jagged shard of the table and stabbed his assailant in the neck with it; the man gurgled and died rather quickly.

The other two men lost their nerve at that point and bolted for the door.

Their employer, the wiry man in armour, growled and cursed. “Cowards! You’re not getting an ounce of the reward!”

“You want to know something?” a voice said behind him.

The man flinched and turned slowly to see Cloud right behind him, a smirk on his scarred face. “Greed isn’t a very good motivator,” the blonde man explained. “You see, as soon as a man hears the words ‘gold’ or ‘reward’ he’s interested. But if it’s soon followed by ‘pain’ or ‘death’ he loses interest entirely.”

Cloud got closer to the man until their foreheads were almost touching. In the dim light of the fireplace, his blue eyes seemed to burn. “We ronin don’t have that problem. As samurai, we were trained to not fear pain or death, but to revel in it. And by our nature we seek out gold and rewards because little else matters anymore. Which, my friend, is why you never try to kill a ronin for a reward.” In one swift movement, Cloud took the man’s katana and buried it hilt-deep into his opponent’s stomach; the blade poked out of the man’s back, coated in his red blood.

He leaned in closer to the man’s ear and whispered one more thing. “We have nothing to lose…and everything to gain.”

The man gasped for a moment before toppling over, his eyes glazed, his sword still sticking out of him. The tip of the katana was buried in the wooden floor, meaning the blade was upright; slowly, the warrior’s body slid down the sword to the floor, making a squelching noise that any normal person would find sickening.

Cloud, however, watched with minute interest before picking up his hat, sword, longbow and quiver of arrows. “Sorry about the furniture,” he said to Angeal, turning his back. “I’ll pay you back with the reward from the daimyo.”

And with that, he walked out of the inn and into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> * = To hell with Father!  
> ** = My lady!  
> *** = Come on friend


End file.
